Two Fools & A Love Confession
by EikoWest
Summary: Gohan had confessed his feelings once to his first love only to end up cruelly heartbroken. Two years later, he realizes he is still in denial and decides that over-saturation is the best recourse: Receive kokuhakus. Reject kokuhakus. Repeat until heart goes numb. It's a brilliant plan. He's very optimistic about it. HanP (Gohan x Piccolo)(Warnings Inside.)


**Warnings/Tags: **Alternate Universe – High School, Normal Aliens/Earthlings, No Ki Powers, Angst, Fluff Overload(?), Cuteness Overload(?), Possible OOC-ness, Kokuhakus, Love Confessions, Interspecies Romance, Kissing In The Rain(?), Uke Piccolo, NSFW, Story #139, 飯Ｐ**,**腐向け

**Disclaimer: ****Dragon Ball**/**Z**/**GT**/**Xenoverse**/**Super**/etc. belong to their respective owners. I own nothing except this derivative fanwork which I do not profit from.

* * *

Story #139:

**Two Fools & A Love Confession**

* * *

_**Kokuhaku**_ (告白こくはく) - profession of love; when a man or a woman declares their love to another and hopes to begin dating that person.

––

BLAM!

"Whu—? Hey! This isn't funny! Open this door!"

No response.

Minutes ticked by as he banged his fists against the metal barrier, but it remained tightly shut.

It would seem that he was, as he feared, locked out on the rooftop of the school building all alone.

Again.

…

_**Only a few minutes ago…**_

"I'm sorry…"

"That's it? You're rejecting me so soon?"

"I… I'm not sure I understand… When should I—?"

"Why won't you even give me a chance? You don't have a girlfriend!"

"No, but… I already know that I don't like you that way… I don't want to waste your time giving you false hopes or anything."

"Okay… Then why don't you come clean and tell us who he is?_ Your special someone_."

"_'He'_…? I never said anything about a 'he'…"

"Well, practically all the girls in this school have tried to get you to date them and you've rejected every single one. What other reason could it be but that you're gay and that you have a secret boyfriend!"

"Huh? Oh, n-no, there's—I don't have a boyfriend, I just—"

"You don't want to tell me? Fine!"

BLAM!

"Whu—? Did she just…?" He ran towards the door and pushed. It didn't budge. "…Fucking lock me out here…?"

He banged his fists against the metal barrier, yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Hey! This isn't funny! Open this door!"

No response.

He tried throwing his weight onto it. It remained tightly sealed; practically a steel wall with no handle or knob, one that could only be locked and unlocked from the inside.

"WHY…?!"

…

**_Back to the present…_**

"Great…" With his back to the locked exit, he sunk down to his shins, chin to his knees. "What's the big deal with locking someone up for refusing to go out with them? It's fucking insane…"

The last time it happened, he lucked out and was rescued by a school maintenance personnel after only an hour of being trapped. He doubted he would be so fortunate now… There was a storm brewing all afternoon that looked about ready to rip open the skies. Everyone had been itching to rush home as soon as the dismissal bell rang; that was thirty minutes ago.

He could force open the door if he really needed to, of course—rip it from its hinges with a single serious punch. But he wasn't ready to let anyone in on his secret that half of him hailed from a race of super strong godzilla-apes who accidentally stomped their own planet to extinction. Nope, flexing even just a modicum of his alien strength even if to save himself would undoubtedly cost him his scholarship status. Besides, he was strongly against destruction of public property and made a conscious effort to avoid it (as much as he could).

To be fair, the notion that there was more than one girl in campus whacked enough to punish him for not agreeing to date them totally blindsided him. _How does one even anticipate such a bizarrely stupid scenario?_ He knew he should really stop accepting all these invitations for love professions; he wasn't interested in dating at present and most likely even for the immediate foreseeable future… But for some deep-seated masochistic reason he believed that if he did it over and over for long enough, that it would somehow help numb down a certain very poignant and unhappy memory to do with _kokuhakus_ in his past. It was terrible idea, of course; he knew as much. Choosing to keep reliving an experience that reminded you of something you wanted to forget didn't only seem glaringly counterintuitive but also the worst possible solution to his problem; but he didn't see it like that…

Gohan Son Jr actually believed—whether out of desperation or looming insanity—that if he endured it long enough, by some nonsensical shambolic twist of fate or reverse-Karma, it would magically do over his own first love confession that took place almost two years ago, with a happy ending this time. So convinced of the efficacy of his plan was he, that in spite of his current predicament, he patiently reminded himself that he only needed to do a few more dozen love confessions and he would be cured. It was working,_ slowly but surely._ He was almost over his first love, he just knew it.

He sighed as he checked his phone and confirmed what he already knew: _No signal._ The rooftop was a dead zone. He had no other means to call for help. Even if school had only been out for around thirty minutes he knew that no one would be down in the grounds to hear him even if he poked his head out over the ledge and screamed his head off for help; he was six stories up and in a part of the campus that people rarely frequented.

_Maybe I should start investing in a satellite phone… Or climbing gear, _he thought ruefully. _At least, it isn't so bad up here_…

The splash of scenery before him was dotted with colourful buildings and trees, fringed by the mist-covered mountain ranges in the distant skyline and offset by gathering lumps of greyish clouds against the pale horizon. The serene beauty of the sweeping spectacle before him made him forget his unfortunate circumstances.

That is, until droplets of wetness began to pelt his skin; shortly followed by the skies pouring buckets down on him!

Cursing under his breath, he frantically scanned his surroundings for an awning or any kind of shelter even if he already knew there wasn't any. Finally accepting that he was going to get drenched anyway, he decided to try his luck at the door again, if only to unload some of his frustrations.

"Help! Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Let me outta—_waaaahhh!_"

A loud thump behind him caused his heart to lurch and lodge in his throat, along with a rather unmanly scream which lasted for far longer than he would have wanted, before dying in his throat. By the time he gathered his bearings enough to wheel around, panting hard and hand over his chest, the pattering rain had miraculously ceased…

Only– it was still raining everywhere else.

Looking up, he was relieved to find a perfectly logical explanation for the seemingly supernatural phenomenon:

_An umbrella over his head._

But when his eyes finally assessed the whole picture, that's when he noticed the _actual_ supernatural phenomenon:

The one holding the umbrella was none other than…

_P-P-Piccolo-san…?_

Every molecule in him froze. He tried to say something but a strangled gurgle was all that came out of his mouth; it garnered no reaction from the Namek. He wasn't so sure if he was still awake or he had, at some point, tripped and hit his head and was now having one distastefully sarcastic dream… He once again attempted to be more coherent…

"Uhh… I ah… Aah… Ahhhhhh—aahhCHOOO!"

Despite the chilly weather, Gohan felt his face burn. _He had just sneezed on Piccolo's uniform!_

"Oh, crumbs! I-I'm so sor—"

"Take off your shirt."

"—ry…" Gohan blinked. "Whuu…?"

"It's soaking wet. Take it off."

Gohan's brain lagged, quite certain by then that he was in the middle of some bizarre dream… When the umbrella was shoved into his hands and his dress shirt's buttons were briskly undone for him, he was completely sold on the idea that he was dreaming – it didn't get any weirder than this. Or so he thought. He was still hard-pressed trying to process things when Piccolo then began unbuttoning his own coat and dress shirt before him. And that's about when his jaw virtually hit the ground with a clack, all congruity and coherence forgotten.

He had only seen Piccolo butt-naked once. The Namek never used the shower stalls in school because he didn't do sports or any of the after-class club activities. The one time Gohan chanced upon him grudgingly bathing there in the after school hours was when Piccolo was forced to scrub the grease off the school cafeteria ovens as punishment for allegedly causing an explosion in one of the science laboratories…

Gohan never recovered since. The experience "moved" him so much that he woke up with a fever the very next day, to Chi-chi's great bafflement, as he didn't have other symptoms of the flu or anything, his temperature simply refused to go down. Lamentably, he didn't get to see what goods Piccolo packed in-between his legs because he had his back to him at that time. But he did get a good long look at the sexy Namek's glorious green rump as he bent over to put on his pants. He swore to this very day that it had to be the _finest, most incredible_ _ass_ in the entire galaxy…

So now that a shirtless Piccolo took back the umbrella and ordered him to wear the dry garments that he had been donning only moments ago, Gohan could only stare. The shirt and coat shoved into his chest smelled so enticing, it instantly shorted his brain; and Kami's balls…

_He was now face-to-face, up-close and personal with Piccolo's trim naked torso…_

Gohan knew his jaw was agape and that drool was pooling in his mouth but he couldn't stop himself from gaping dumbstruck for several seconds at the perfectly pronounced abs and pectorals before him.

Only when Piccolo audibly puffed out some air through his nostrils and impatiently tucked the umbrella back into his hand did he snap out of his stupor. The Namek grumbled something under his breath about '_weak and pathetic humans'_ before grudgingly helping him into the shirt like he was a toddler who didn't know how to get dressed on his own yet.

Gohan stupidly mumbled his thanks, followed by something along the lines of _'I'm not exactly human, you know…'_ as he obediently guided his arms one after the other into the armhole and out the long sleeves' cuffs which came up all the way to his knuckles. Piccolo yanked the opposite plackets together to cover his bare chest but didn't bother buttoning it up, to which Gohan didn't remember to bother with either. The coat was then hastily thrown over his shoulders before the umbrella was relieved from his hands.

The downpour only seemed to intensify afterwards. Gohan was somewhat relieved that the clamorous backdrop of wind and rain provided a convenient excuse not to carry on obligatory awkward conversation because honestly, he didn't think he was capable of doing anything at all at the moment—so close to Piccolo and getting hopelessly high on his divine scent that was now delightfully permeating all of his better judgement.

So they stood there, side-by-side beneath the thankfully large umbrella in companionable silence, watching the raindrops blur out their surroundings. But Gohan really saw nothing of it. He could only be hyper aware of the body standing right next to him; of how his limbs were numbing from the shudders he was trying to suppress; how his ears were going deaf at the sound of his own pounding heart.

A chilly gust of wind blew their way, snagging the umbrella—which he didn't even remember offering to keep a hold of—and causing his grip on it to falter. He battled to keep it straight high up above his towering companion's head – normally an easily manageable task to accomplish… But between his rising temperature, the sweaty palms, and a raging boner in the making, focusing on keeping his balance and getting enough oxygen into his lungs was already proving to be one task too many to handle. Gohan stifled a cry as the umbrella handle began to slip from his hands. Just when he thought that he was going to lose his grip completely, a hand grabbed onto the handle over his fingers, reinforcing his hold; elegant green fingers wrapping itself tighter around his fingers to further secure it.

The hybrid teenager chomped on his lip; _Piccolo was technically holding his hand!_ The small contact sent violent shivers up his limbs that substantially aggravated his "discomfort". He shook his head to dispel some of the disorientation fogging his mind, desperate to diffuse the awkward tension and distract himself from his "growing" problem. He knew that healthy Nameks were generally impervious to weather conditions but it still didn't seem right to take all of Piccolo's clothes—now that he's regained some sense of the situation.

"Y-you must be cold too! Here, take this back. I'm fine with the shirt—"

He was already shrugging off the coat but froze when he caught his tall companion staring at him intently_,_ as if trying to read his mind. _I really don't want to return your coat because I want nothing more than to keep your clothes for myself forever… Hell, I want to keep_ you _to myself forever!_ Gohan swallowed the lump in his throat that he was pretty sure was his heart; he thinks he remembers reading somewhere that some beings could do that, specifically Namekians… _Were those mortifying morsels of truth currently being extracted from his mind? _

And he couldn't help thinking that perhaps that was indeed the case because Piccolo only looked away, cheeks stained violet, muttering something about how he was impervious to external temperatures—how _'Nameks didn't get sick'—_and that weaklings like Gohan and his kind needed it more.

With a wry laugh, Gohan obligingly shimmied back under the coat. It was pathetic that he didn't mind being low-key insulted if it meant that he could hang on to Piccolo's coat for a little bit longer. But what he thought even more pathetic was how after all this time—after that soul-crushing heartbreak almost two years ago, and after he felt that he was finally making progress in his hard efforts to kill the stubborn feelings he had for the one who broke his heart—with each passing minute, he was painfully realizing that he still had it _bad_.

The lull in the rainstorm was more than welcome; the downpour had calmed down to a light drizzle and the umbrella seemed to create a nice little sound dome that carried even comfortable half-whispers between them just fine. The need for awkward conversation began to feel overpowering.

"Uhh… So…" Gohan hesitantly began, "What were you doing up here anyway?"

A green taloned finger pointed upward; which Gohan immediately understood to mean the slanted upper surface of the doorway's outhouse structure.

"Sleeping."

"Sleeping…? Out here…?"

Piccolo's stunning blue eyes returned to him and Gohan's heart stuttered.

"Yeah. Until all the ruckus."

"Oh." _Right._ Him pounding on the door and yelling at the top of his lungs after that unfortunate… _*kokuhaku._

…

…

_"Piccolo-san… I err…"_

_"…"_

_"Errr… I– I… I think… uhhh…"_

_"…?"_

_"—I-I think I'm in love with you!"_

…

…

Gohan grimaced, feeling a twinge of pain in his chest; the memories were still fresh even if almost two years had passed. What sheer irony to be stuck out on the roof with the one person who was the reason he got stuck up here (twice now). All in the name of his quest to forget the heartbreak he's suffered…

He was a third year in junior high school then. He had plucked all the courage he's ever possessed just to be able to tell Piccolo how he felt, driven by the fear that he might not get to see his dire infatuation again once he's graduated into senior high. He didn't even know how he managed to ask Piccolo to meet him at the rooftop, all he remembered was the sharp stab of pain in his heart that felt like he had actually been stabbed—only worse… The rejection had hit so hard that he couldn't bear to so much as see Piccolo after that day and he did everything he could to actively avoid running into him at school or everywhere else…

And yet… Now that he was here with him—now that the one true object of all his fantasies was standing right next to him, _so close and so warm, and looking_ _even more sublime than he remembered, being so self-sacrificing and concerned for him…_ He realized with bittersweetness that not an iota of his feelings for the man had diminished with time – a whole year and eleven months, to be exact. Every part of who he was… _was still madly in love with everything that was Piccolo Daimaoh Jr. _If anything, he could even feel himself falling for him all over again only harder.

Gohan scrunched his eyes shut, begging his heart to shut up. It was so loud in his own ears that he was sure that the Namek could hear it—what with their Kami-forsaken keen sense of hearing. The air was bitingly cold and yet his body felt so hot; he swooned in a daze, feeling a fever coming on…

A palm gently pressed to his forehead made him jump.

"You're burning up."

"I-I'm f-fine," Gohan stuttered, steam clouds forming in front of him. "This is totally normal…" _when I'm with you._

Piccolo's brow went up.

Gohan was overcome with dizziness then and mildly feverish, he could barely hold the umbrella steady. Piccolo instinctively leaned in closer to support his hand more firmly on the umbrella's handle. _It was all becoming too much! _Panicked at the closeness, he abruptly let go of the umbrella and turned to resume pounding on the door behind them, shouting as loud as he could for help.

_He didn't know how much longer he could withstand being so close to the Namek without kissing him senseless…!_

Piccolo diligently held the umbrella over their heads the whole time as Gohan banged his fists against the door and yelled himself hoarse. The weather seemed to have chosen to commiserate with him—or mock him, depending on one's perspective—because it had resumed battering them with big, fat raindrops and tempestuous winds all over again; he had to holler twice as loud just to hear himself over Mother Nature's concerto.

The sudden absence of the umbrella over his head halted the halfbreed's rampage. Fearful that he might have severely annoyed his companion, he turned with much trepidation… And what he saw hit him like a ton of bricks worth of guilt…

Piccolo had his hands over his ears, an expression of agony on his face. The umbrella had skidded a few metres away, completely disregarded as the Namek wobbled where he stood and finally pitched forward.

"Piccolo-san!"

Gohan's arms reached out just in time to catch him before he hit the ground, but the slippery surface still caused him to crumple to his knees under the weight. "Oh, no! No, no, no… I'm _so_ sorry, Piccolo-san…" Hot tears filled his eyes as he shakily touched his beloved's now visibly pallid face. "Are you okay? Gods, I'm so stupid…!"

Piccolo swatted Gohan's hands away, hastily dismissing the fuss over him as he stubbornly tried to push himself off and attempted to get back on his feet. Gohan fell on his behind in the process, but ended up flat on his back the very next minute as the Namek crashed onto him again.

Gohan groaned, slightly winded after he bumped his head on the pavement. The realization that Piccolo was slumped on top of him, their exposed chests flat against each other's was enough to jolt him to sobriety in an instant, and his hands flew up to cover his face as he felt a nosebleed threatening to erupt. "P-Piccolo-san…?" his muffled voice barely came through in-between his fingers.

His schoolmate only grunted in response, but to Gohan's alarm—and excitement—didn't get off of him. The Namek stopped trying to pick himself up and his dead weight sunk down more pliantly on top of the halfbreed. His breaths were coming in sharp and shallow, and Gohan could feel it ghosting over the sensitive skin of his nape, making the hairs all over his body stand on end. The softness of Piccolo's lips were unbearably ticklish against his neck and their wet bodies pressed flush against one another's was what sealed the deal… The hybrid was sporting a full-blown erection but he could do nothing to hide it!

_It was all too much!_

"Y-you… You don't remember me do you?" Gohan finally whispered when the tension had somewhat settled around them, even if the weather still hadn't let up. He was mildly delirious and incredibly out of breath; the building pressure in his chest about ready to explode. They were so close now, he knew he didn't have to raise his voice for Piccolo to hear; resigned to the fact that there was no way this was all going to blow over without him spectacularly falling apart in front of his crush. "I'm the one you rejected, after I confessed to you…"

The sound of the raindrops filled the spaces between them for some heart stopping seconds. Until Gohan could bear the torturous euphony of Piccolo's quiet breaths no more…

"It was a long time ago… You probably don't remember—"

"I didn't reject you."

"—me. What… what did you say?"

To his further torment, Piccolo didn't respond right away. Just when Gohan was about to nag him for a response, Piccolo finally pushed himself off the ground—off the halfbreed and unsteadily hauled himself into a sitting position. Gohan shakily followed suit.

"You walked off before I could give you an answer…"

Gohan wasn't sure of what he was hearing or what it all meant. Rather, he didn't trust himself—his desperate heart's interpretation of it. He stared at Piccolo in utter shock.

They were both completely drenched now. All the while, the rain hadn't let up the slightest. Lightning carved the skies, followed by a deafening clap of thunder. Piccolo winced but refrained from shielding his ears.

"I- I don't understand… What do you mean?" Gohan finally sputtered, vying to be heard over the noise of a billion raindrops against the Earth, "You said you were sorry! That's the first thing you said!"

"I said I was sorry because I didn't know your name!" Piccolo retorted, droplets of rain water flying from his wet lips.

It was taking everything Gohan had to keep himself from licking and just altogether claiming those succulent lips. In his heart, he had always owned them—always known that they were meant to be. The harsh blow of the rejection years ago didn't curb that insolence of his heart in the slightest.

"You forgot to tell me before launching into your speech! You ran out so fast you never heard the rest of what I tried to say… After that, you were hellbent on avoiding me, every time I tried to approach you, you ran away!"

Gohan couldn't believe what he was hearing. _Was he really awake and this was actually happening?_ Two years… For almost two long years, he had been devastatedly heartbroken… _Was it all just because of some dumb misunderstanding? _Piccolo had been his crush since grammar school; he had never planned to confess, he had accepted the fact that the Namek was out of his league and would never spare him a second glance, not in a million years! _Had he overreacted so soon and thought his schoolmate rejected him because it was the only outcome that he taught himself to expect?_

Tears sprung to his eyes; he felt like a colossal fool all of a sudden. "What are you saying…?! Are you saying that… that… you didn't reject me after all?"

"I'm saying… You're an idiot."

Gohan blinked rapidly, willing himself to believe what was happening, but the raindrops continued to obscure his vision adding to the whole surrealistic dreamlike vibe of the whole situation. Relief and anger filled him all at once; there was happiness with much hesitation, and there was a foolish amount of hope. Yet, he was also petrified altogether that this was all for nothing and that he was just about to relive his most painful nightmare all over again.

Cold and shivering under the rain, he felt the same fever that gripped him years ago take hold of him once more, and…

Somehow, it emboldened him to face his fate whatever the outcome…

"B-but if you didn't reject me… What were you going to say then? That you… that you liked me back?" Tears were pouring down his cheeks now, but he wasn't sure if it was the rain. His chest was tight and hurting with dreadful anticipation and yet a part of him that never died no matter how hard he tried to kill it, dared to dream still, after everything… "Is that… what you were going to say?"

"I was going to say…" Piccolo's cheeks coloured rapidly, "That I was willing to give it a chance…"

Gohan couldn't help it, his heart was already getting ahead of himself and his face contorted childishly as he broke down in tears completely; he knew no amount of rain could hide it now, all the feelings that were ripping him apart then and there.

"Wuh… Well, what about now…? Are you still…"

"I still think you're an idiot," Piccolo muttered, cheeks darkening some more.

"Well… I'm still crazy about you!" Gohan spat out before he could stop himself, heaving with so much emotion. "I want you so badly—and I did everything to try to forget but… I couldn't… I—" he gave in and sobbed a little to ease the weight on his chest—on his heart, "—I still love you! I love you…! Piccolo-san…"

He was crying then—more of bawling without a shred of dignity spared. Never mind that he knew he looked like a bloody fool—he was beyond the point of no return; he's left nothing to himself – pride, shame, and all that? It didn't matter anymore…

When he felt himself pinned against the sealed exit with those heavenly supple lips hungrily pressed against his; that body that he longed to touch so much flush against his own, aching with so much want that his soul practically swam in bliss– he knew that everything he's ever been through up until that point had all been damn worth it…

Because his very first and one true love loved him back all this time, after all…

Gohan knew, that from that moment on, nothing and no one—

Not even the storm, could rain on his parade…

Because he had finally found his happy ending.

**The End. **X3

* * *

**Replies to Reviews:**

**To dem bones:**

Hi! Your sweet and thoughtful review brought a big, lasting smile to my heart! Yes, that's one of the things I love about writing these two, they've got such an innocent love (but one that can be intensely sexy at the same time – at least, for me). I understand what you mean and I struggle with one-shot stories a lot too, that's why my stories usually take years in the making. f^^; I was practically squealing internally as I read about how you noticed all those little details and how you felt it really worked in conveying the characters' feelings (to be honest, those all came in the spur of the moment as I was writing it; I kind of just let these two do what they usually do – be their cute, silly selves and I tried my best to faithfully write it). I really can't appreciate your feedback enough! It's such a gem! You don't know how much it means to me when fans/readers tell me that they think I did these two justice, so… THANK YOU!✧ ToT ❤

* * *

(2017/10/13-2020/03/04)


End file.
